John Ferguson is a newlywed minister without a congregation. He was part of the 1843 split with the Church of Scotland in which ministers opposed the patronage system That allowed landowners to appoint local pastors. They formed the Free Church of Scotland, but most of them also lost their livings, at least until they could rally a congregation. Short on cash, John accepts as assignment from a local land broker: sail to an island in the far north Hebrides and remove the last human resident. This was part of a wide-ranging plan to move longtime leaseholders off the land and free it up for other uses, mainly sheep. The journey is hard, and John is left on the island with a dilapidated house that has no furnishings except a small table and a three-legged stool. In the box he brings are a cake his wife made, a few assorted cans of food, and a gun and ammunition. He has been told that the local inhabitant, a large man who is not too bright, will resist being taken from his home.

The land is rugged and uneven, and as he bathes in a river, John takes a steep fall. When Ivar, the local man, makes his daily rounds, he finds bits and pieces: a torn jacket, a woman's likeness in a carved frame, and a battered, naked, unconscious man. He takes John home and tends to him, unaware that this is the man sent by the land broker. Ivar becomes fascinated with the woman in the picture frame: he knows this must be the man's wife, but he hides the picture behind a teapot on a high shelf. Ivar knows only a few words of English, so when John awakens, he begins writing down words in Ivar's almost-extinct language, learned by gestures and pantomimes. There comes a moment when, Ivar loses interest in the woman in the portrait because, he realizes unexpectedly, something has happened between himself and John.

The book alternates between the points of view of John, Ivar, and Mary, John's wife. I found the descriptions of the island and Ivar's simple way of life interesting, but I have to admit that the ever-growing list of Ivar's words got a bit tedious. The author made a great choice in focusing some chapters on Mary, a rather independent woman who was satisfied with her pastimes and never expected to marry. She plays an important role in the story, particularly its ending. I quite enjoyed this book and will be looking for more by Carys Davies. ( )

Poor preacher John Ferguson decides to make some money by helping a landlord evict Ivar from the island he’s lived on his entire life. When John is shipwrecked and injured, Ivar nurses him back to health and teaches John his language. Meanwhile John’s wife decides something has gone wrong, sells her wedding ring, and sets out to fetch him. There are many ways this book could have gone and I wasn’t keen on the direction it took. I also struggled with the audiobook and the sequence of events being mixed up. Normally it doesn’t bother me, but sometimes I struggled with the narrator’s accent causing me to struggle more with the sequence. Once I got used to the narrator, whose accent was lovely even if I didn’t always understand him, it was fine. Lovely descriptions and Mary was so sweet. I also loved Peggy the horse, the blind cow, and even the sheep. ( )

An externally stark but internally rich, lovely short tale set against the backdrop of the Clearances in nineteenth-century Scotland. Clear is a story about upheaval, where sustenance is found on both common and uncommon ground, and it navigates themes of comfort, change, and the search for fulfillment in the most remote expanses of place and spirit. It is also a compact love letter to lost language and communication across physical, emotional, regional, and socio-economic boundaries. A tightly-knit opus that needs no further introduction or conclusion; Davies guides us over the crest of but one perfectly-formed, undulating whitecap in a fathomless northern sea. ( )

Beautifully written, it tells the story of the Scottish Clearances and particularly the story of John, a clergyman of the new church, who is sent to a remote Scottish island to evict its last resident. John suffers an injury, and Ivar, the man he is sent to evict, comes to his aid. Meanwhile John's wife Mary learns the factor who sent John on the errand likely expected him to fail in his mission. The book was on track to be a 5 star read until the last 40 pages or so when it took what I consider an inappropriate direction. If I had not started reading it at night, I could easily have read it in a single sitting. ( )

Beautiful and poetic, a little gem. I highly recommend the audio, I listened to it over the weekend while gardening and it put me in another world. ( )